Faith

Joy brought up something that sounded very bogus that she heard someone say once: "Even those who have never heard about Jesus are condemned to hell". That doesn't sound very fair; however, God IS fair. So either the statement is wrong, or God isn't fair. I'm not about to tell God that He is not fair, so I went to examine what's wrong with the statement. Here's a good answer to the question "What about the person who never heard of Jesus?":

http://www.rapturealert.com/whataboutfaq.html

The gist of it is: If someone has heard the gospel and rejects Jesus, bad news for them. This include skeptics, atheists, etc, who have heard and don't believe. If someone hasn't heard the gospel then God in His fairness judges them according to what they do know. If they were the village murderer, probably not so good for them.

A really good example is Abraham. He didn't have the old testament law (it didn't exist yet!), nor did he have the new testament gospel. He had faith in God.